USA > New York > Old New York : or, Reminiscences of the past sixty years > Part 14
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It had long been understood that the old Chamber of Commerce had a full-length portrait, painted by Pine, of Lieut. Governor Colden. Pintard was for years in search of it: at length he had prospects of success ; and ransacking the
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SAMUEL MILLER.
loft of the old Tontine, (recently demolished,) he discovered the prize among a parcel of old lumber. " I shall now," said he, " take measures to revive that excellent old corporation, much to be regard- ed for what it has done for our metropolis, and for what it is capable of doing." My friend Dr. King can scarcely forget Dr. Pintard in his History of the Chamber of Commerce. This precious paint- ing of Colden is now among your historical treasures.
If a careful examination be made of the ear- lier records of our Historical Society, it will be seen that our founder, John Pintard, filled with the idea of establishing this institution, most judi- ciously sought the countenance of the reverend the clergy of this metropolis. He was alive to the beneficial zeal employed by Jcremy Belknap and other divines in bchalf of the Massachusetts His- torical Society : he considered the clergy as among the safest guardians of literature and history, and that their recommendation of the measure would prove of signal utility. The Rev. Dr. Samuel Miller, of whom I have on several occasions spo- ken in laudatory terms, was at this period a prom- inent individual throughout the land, by the re- cent publication of his " Brief Retrospect," which obtained for its author the applause of both hem- isphercs. This able divine and courteous and ex- emplary character, had also announced to his
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friends his intention of preparing for the press a " History of the State of New York," and it was further understood that he had given much study to historical research. Dr. John M. Mason, who stood without a parallel among us as a preacher, and as a student of ecclesiastical affairs, with strong feclings for New York, was also one on whom Pintard relied for counsel. There was, moreover, so adventurous a daring in the very ele- ments of Mason's constitution, and his personal influence was so wide among the literati, that it was inferred his countenance could not but in- crease the number of advocates for the plan. Inno- vation presented no alarm to Dr. Mason : progress was his motto. Hc had heard much of revolu- tionary times from the lips of his friend Hamil- ton. His father's patriotism circulated in his veins : he knew the uncertainties of historical data, and that the nation's history, as well as that of the State's, was yet to be written. This heroic scholar and divine, whom I never think of without admiration of the vastness of intellectual power which God in his wisdom vouchsafes to certain mortals, was prominently acknowledged as the chieftain of the ecclesiastical brotherhood of those days. He contemplated, moreover, a life of his friend Hamilton, and doubtless was often absorbed in the consideration of American history. The paramount obligations of his pastoral and scholas-
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JOHN M. MASON.
tic duties, and their imperative urgeney, must un- questionably be assigned as reasons for his non- performance. As a reader he was unrivalled ; as an orator in the saered desk, his disciplined intel- leet shed its radianee over all he uttered. Rich in a knowledge of mankind, and of the ethies of nations, the ample treasures of ancient and mod- ern learning were summoned at command, with a practical influence at which doubt fled, and sophistry and indifference stood abashed. He was bold in his animadversions on publie events, and lashed the deformities and viees of the times with unsparing severity. There was no equivoeation in his nature, either in sentiment or in manner. His address to his people, on resigning his pastoral charge of the Cedar street Church, is, perhaps, his greatest oratorical effort. An overflowing as- sembly were wrapt in consternation at the foree of his logic, his eloquent and profound appeal, and the deep gravity of his manner The thunders of Mount Sinai eould seareely be more intensely felt by his devoted flock, than the words which he ut- tered in allusion to the Christian triumphs of his father's life and labors in their midst. "Here," exelaimed the preacher, filled with the saeredness of his divine mission, " here my father prayed, and God heard him ; here my father preached, and God gave him seals of his ministry and crowns of his rejoicing. The memorial of his
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faithfulness is perpetually before my eyes ; and in the spot over which I now stand, his flesh rests in hope. I have entered into his labors. The seed which he sowed I have been honored to water." He had within him the power to annihilate equivo- cation, and abrogate with keencst reasoning those formularies which he pronouneed to have oppressed the Church of God, and acted as a barrier to her progress. No preacher among us ever more earn- estly contended for the all-suffieieney of the Bible ; and with Chillingworth he was wont to exelaim, " The Bible is the religion of Protestants." I have said sufficient to demonstrate the earnestness of the faith cherished by Mason : on no subject whatever that he attempted to expound, could he be dull. I might say mueh to show that, not- withstanding the warmth of his temperament, he was often lenient. I have seen the big tear fill his eye when he compared the success of his labors with those of his excellent and intimate friend, Robert Hall, whom he called a lump of goodness.
· No instance of the predominanee of his benev- olent impulse and his kindly nature was more favorably illustrated than in an occurrence at which I was present, of a long interview of three hours which took plaec with the Doctor and the cele- brated Abbe Correa de Serra, the Portuguese Min- ister. This remarkable man, of rare genius, so amply stored with ancient and modern languages,
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and so full of a knowledge of the sciences, was in- terrogated by Dr. Mason on the government and ecclesiastical polity of the Pontifical Church. Armed at every point, the learned and profound Abbe vindicated the claims of his order and the wisdom of the Romish policy, in which he had been disciplined with the astuteness and dexterity of the ablest Jesuit, while the calm conversa- tional tone and the courteous diction which flowed between these two champions won the admi- ration of the company, and afforded the hap- piest proof of the benignity of intellectual cul- ture. The angular points of Scotch Protestant- ism seemed in the discussion to be somewhat blunted by the exposition given of the Romish Church, and I was led to the conclusion that a religion whose fundamentals were charity and love depended more upon the conformity of the heart to its saving principles, and less upon non-con- formity to established rituals.
Dr. Mason's Plea for Sacramental Communion evinced a toleration worthy of apostolic Chris- tianity : his address on the formation of the Ame- rican Bible Society, prepared within a few hours for the great occasion, by its masculine vigor, crushed opposition even in high quarters, and led cap- tive the convention. " We have not a man among us," said Olinthus Gregory, of the Brit- ish. Society, "who can cope with your Ma-
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son. All have wondered at the sublimity and earnestness of his address." In his eonversation, Dr. Mason was an intellectual gladiator, while his commanding person and massive front added foree to his argument. He knew the duetility of words, and generally chose the strongest for strongest thoughts. He had a nomenelature which he often strikingly used. In reference to an individual whose support to a certain measure was about to be solieited, " Put no confidence in him," said the Doetor, " he's a lump of negation." In speaking of the ealamitous state of the wicked and the needy in times of pestilence, he broke forth in this language :- " To be poor in this world, and to be damned in the next, is to be miserable indeed." He had a deep hatred of the old-fashioned pulpit, which he ealled an eeelesiastieal tub, and said it eramped both mind and body. With White field, he wished the mountain for a pulpit, and the heavens for a sounding-board. His example in in- troducing the platform in its stead has proved so effective, that he may elaim the merit of having led to an innovation which has already beeome almost universal among us. As Dr. Mason is his- torieal, and a portion of our Society's treasure, I could not be more brief concerning him. If ever mortal possessed decision of eharaeter, that mortal was John M. Mason.
Pintard, thus aided by the co-operation of so
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EGBERT BENSON. 63
many and worthy individuals in professional life, determined to prosecute his design with vigor. He had doubtless submitted his plan to his most reliable friend, De Witt Clinton, at an early day of its inception, and it is most probable that by their concurrence Judge Egbert Benson was selected as the most judicious choice for first Pres- ident. This venerable man had long been an actor in some of the most trying scenes of his country's legislative history, and was himself the subject of history. His antecedents were all favorable to his being selected : of Dutch parentage, a native of the city of New York, and a distinguished classi- cal scholar of King's College, from which he was graduated in 1765. He was one of the Commit- tee of Safety : deeply read in legal matters, and as a proficient in the science of pleading, he had long been known as holding a high rank in juris- prudence. By an ordinance of the Convention of 1777, he was appointed first Attorney-General of the State-he was also a member of the first legis- lature the same year. Perhaps it may be new to some of my hearers to learn, that he was also one of the three Commissioners appointed by the United States to assist with other Commissioners, that might be chosen by Sir Guy Carleton, in superin- tending the embarkation of the tories for Nova Sco- tia. The letter to Carleton of their appointment, signed by Judge Egbert Benson, William Smith,
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and Daniel Parker, bears date New York, June 17, 1783. I am indebted to our faithful histo- rian, Mr. Lossing, for this curious fact.
In 1789 Mr. Benson was elected one of the six Representatives of New York to the first Con- gress, in which body he continued four years. In his Congressional career, lie was often associated in measures with Rufus King, Fisher Ames, Oliver Ellsworth, and others of the same illustrious order of men. Nor did his official public services end here. In 1794 he was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of New York, where he remained several years. He was a Regent of the University from 1789 to 1802. He was a most intimate and reliable friend of that stern and inflexible patriot, Gov. John Jay. He lived, the admiration of all good men, to the very advanced age of 87 years, blessed with strength of body and soundness of mind, and died at Jamaica, on Long Island, in 1833, confident in the triumphs of a Christian life.
The patriotism of Judge Benson, his devotion to his country in its most trying vicissitudes, and his political and moral integrity, were never ques- tioned. His kindliness of feeling, and his social and unassuming demeanor, struck every beholder. Such was Egbert Benson, the individual earliest and wisely pointed out as our first President.
My acquaintance with Judge Benson did not
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EGBERT BENSON.
commence until near the close of his official tenure in this Society. He presided at the first great festival we held in 1809, at the delivery of Dr. Mil- ler's Discourse, on the 4th of September, 1809, designed to commemorate the discovery of New York, being the completion of the second century since that event. I have, on a former occasion, given an account of that celebration. Judge Ben- son was anecdotical in an eminent degree : his iron memory often gave proofs of its tenacity. His reminiscences of his native city are often evinced in his curious Record of New York in the olden times. From him I learned that our noble faculty of physic had, in those earlier days, their disputations, theoretical and practical, as we have witnessed them in our own times. Strong opposition was met in those days to the adoption of inoculation for the small-pox, as pursued by Dr. Beekman Van Beuren, in the old Alms House, prior to 1770. Old McGrath, a violent Scotch- man, who came among us about 1743, and who is immortalized by Smollett, had the honor of intro- ducing the free use of cold bathing and cold lava- tions in fever. He doubtless had drawn his no- tions from Sir John Floyer, but probably had never conceived a single principle enforced by Cur- rie. McGrath's whole life was a perpetual tur- moil. The venerable Judge confirmed all I had derived from Dr. Samuel Bard concerning Mc-
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Grath's captious disposition and unrefined address. Neither Middleton, nor Farquhar, nor Clossy, could be on easy terms with him; and these men, with John Jones and John Bard, shed lustre on the faculty of physic at that early day. Dr. Henry Mott, who died in 1840, aged 83 years, the father of the illustrious surgeon Dr. Valentine Mott, was among the prominent practitioners who adopted the mercurial practice, with Ogden and Muirson, of Long Island, not without much op- position.
I forbear to record at this time the pleasing reminiscences the Judge gave me at different times of the Bards-John, the best known for his intimacy with Franklin, and his essay on the ma- lignant fever of Long Island, and Samuel, his accomplished son, the active founder of our first medical school of King's College. But the most serious rencontre in our medical annals, according to the Judge, was that which took place with Dr. Pierre Michaux, a French refugee, who settled in New York about 1791, who published an English tract on a surgical subject, with a Latin title- page. The pamphlet was too insignificant to prove an advantageous advertisement to the pen- niless author, but Dr. Wright Post, of most dis- tinguished renown in our records of surgery, feel- ing annoyed by its appearance, solicited his intimate friend, the acrimonious Dunlap, the dra-
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PIERRE MICHAUX.
matic writer, to write a caricature of the work and the author. The request was promptly complied with, and at the old John Street Theatre a ludi- crous after-piece was got up, illustrative of a sur- gical case, Fractura Minimi Digiti, with a mcet- ing of doctors in solemn consultation upon the catastrophe. Michaux repaired to the theatre, took his seat among the spectators, and found the representation of his person, his dress, his man- ner, and his speech, so fairly a veri-resemblance, that he was almost ready to admit an alibi, and alternately thought himself now among the audi- ence-now among the performers. The humili- ated Michaux sought redress by an assault upon Dunlap, as, on the ensuing Sabbath, he was com- ing out from worship in the Brick Church. The violent castigation Dunlap received at the church portal, suspended his public devotional dutics for at least a month. Michaux, now the object of popular ridicule, retired to Staten Island, where after a while his life was closed, oppressed with penury, and mortification of mind. I have thus (by way of parenthesis) introduced some things touching the doctors of years past. I crave your clemency for the interruption. I am so constitu- ted, that I cannot avoid a notice of our departed medical men whenever I address New Yorkers on the subject of their city. I must plead, moreover, that these medical anecdotes are connected with
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the materials I derived from Judge Benson him- self. They in part illustrate his minute recognition of events and his tenacious recollection.
So intimately connected with history is the record of juridical proceedings, and the actors thereof, the actual founders of statutory measures, especially in our popular form of government, that State events necessarily receive their distinctive features from the members of the bar. In short, is not the statute book the most faithful history of a people ? Mr. Pintard, with the largest views to success, earnestly sought the co-operation of that enlightened and important profession. The laws of a nation, said he, are pre-eminently historical in their nature, and fall within our scope. I am justified in the assertion, from personal knowledge, that no class of our citizens embarked with greater zeal in strengthening the interests of this Associa- tion than did the members of that faculty. If you search the minutes of our proceedings, you will find they constitute a large portion of our early friends, and that, too, at a period, when the idea of rearing this establishment was pronounced preposterous, by many even of the well informed.
I shall glance at a few of these worthies among our earliest, our strongest, and most devoted sup- porters. Anthony Bleecker, who deserves an am- ple memoir, was a native of the city of New York ; he was born in October, 1770, and died in
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ANTHONY BLEECKER.
March, 1827. He was a graduate of Columbia College, reared to the profession of the law, and was a gentleman of classical acquisitions, and re- fincd belles-lettres taste. As a member of the Drone Club, a social and literary circle, which had at that time an existence of some years among us, and which included among its members Kent, Johnson, Dunlap, Edward and Samuel Miller, and Charles Brockden Brown, he proved an efficient associate in our ranks. He was for many years a prolific contributor to the periodical press, in ele- gant literature, and wrote for the Drone in prose and verse. Well stored in historical and topo- graphical matters, not a small portion of our library, which contains our early literature, was duc to his inquisitive spirit. His sympathics were ever alive to acts of disinterested benevolence, and as proof we may state that from the crude notes, journals, and log-books which Capt. James Riley furnished, Bleecker drew up gratuitously that pop- ular "Narrative of the Brig Commerce," which obtained so wide a circulation both in this coun- try and abroad. He was almost unceasingly en- gaged in American records of a literary nature, and was just such a scholar for a contributor as the English " Notes and Queries " would have so- licited for their work. He wrote to Bisset, the English writer of the reign of George III., to cor- rect the error which he had promulgated, that
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Henry Cruger, the colleague of Burke, had cir- cumscribed his speech to the enunciation of three words, "I say ditto ;" and which Bissct finally cancelled in subsequent reprints. The produc- tions of Mr. Bleecker's pen were such as to make his friends regret that he did not elaborate a work on some weighty subject. He died a Christian death, in 1827, aged 57 years. His habits, his morals, his weight of character, may be inferred from the mention of his associates, Irving, Paul- ding, Verplanck, and Brevoort. The bar passed sympathizing resolutions on his demise, and John Pintard lost a wise counsellor. The portrait of Mr. Bleecker in the N. Y. Society Library, is a lifelike work of art.
William Johnson is of too recent death not to be held in fresh remembrance by many now pres- ent. He was a native of Connecticut ; he settled early in New York, and entered upon the profes- sion of the law, and was engaged from 1806 to 1823, as Reporter of the Supreme Court of New York, and from 1814 to 1823, of the Court of Chancery. He died in 1848, when he had passed his 80th year. He is recorded in the original act of your incorporation. He for many years had a watchful eye over the interests of the Society. It is beyond my province to speak of the value of his labors. He was of a calm and dignified bear- ing, and of the strictest integrity. As he was the
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PETER A. JAY.
authorized reporter of the legal decisions of the State at a period when her juridical science was expounded by her greatest masters, Kent, Spen- cer, Van Ness, Thompson, &c., and was at its highest renown and of corresponding authority throughout the Union, his numerous volumes are pronounced the most valuable we possess in the department of law reports. He was liberal in his donations of that part of our library devoted to juris- prudence. His most interesting historical contri- butions to the library were those of the newspaper press :- the New York Daily Advertiser from its commencement, an uninterrupted series, until near its close, and the New York Evening Post from its beginning in 1801, and for many consecutive years, may be cited as proofs in point.
With an earnestness surpassed by none of our earlier fraternity, the late Peter A. Jay espoused the cause of this institution, and contributed largely to its library. His bencfactions embraced much of that curious and most valuable material you find classed with your rare list of newspapers, printed long before our Revolutionary contest. I apprehend he must have been thus enabled through the liberality of his illustrious father, Governor Jay. Peter A. Jay was most solicitous in all his doings touching the Society, that the Association should restrict itself to its specified designation. Every thing relative to its historical transactions
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he would cherish, for he deemed New York the theatre on which the great events of the period of our colonization and of the war of independence transpired. It is nowise remarkable that the library is so rich in newspaper and other periodi- cal journals. " A file of American newspapers," said Mr. Jay, " is of far more value to our design, than all the Byzantine historians." You may well boast of the vast accumulation of that spe- cies of recorded knowledge within your walls.
So far as I can recollect, our most efficient members, as Johnson, Jay, Pintard, M'Kesson, Clinton, Morris, and a host of others, have borne testimony to the high importance of preserving those too generally evanescent documents. They are the great source from which we are to derive our knowledge of the form and pressure of the times. No one was more emphatic in the declara- tion of this opinion than Gouverneur Morris.
John M'Kesson, a nephew of the M'Kesson who was Secretary of the N. Y. Convention, an original member, was a large contributor to our Legislative documents ; not the least in value of which were the Journals of the Provincial Con- gress and Convention, together with the proceed- ings of the Committee of Safety from May, 1775, to the adoption of the State Constitution at the close of the Northern campaign in 1777. " They include," says our distinguished associate, Mr. Fol-
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SAMUEL BAYARD.
som, " the period of the invasion of the territory of the State by the British army under General Burgoyne."
The minutes of our first meeting notice the attendance of Samuel Bayard, jun. He was con- nected by marriage with the family of our found- er, Pintard, and they were most intimate friends. He was a gentleman of the old school, a scholar, a jurist, a trustee of Princeton College, a public- spirited man, and a hearty co-operator in estab- lishing this Association ; widely acquainted with historical occurrences, and, if I err not, on terms of personal communication with many of the ac- tive men of the Revolution, including Governor Livingston, of New Jersey. Through Mr. Bayard's agency and John Pintard, we obtained the Inde- pendent Reflector, the Watch Tower of 1754, the American Whig, &c., records indispensable to a right understanding of the controversy of the American Episcopate, and the contentions which sprung out of the charter of King's College. Livingston's life is full of occurrences : he was a voluminous writer on the side of liberty, when his country most needed such advocates : his patriot- ism was of the most intrepid order, and he com- manded the approbation of Washington. Theo- dore Sedgwick, not long since, has given us his valuable biography, and the Duyckincks in the " Cyclopædia of American Literature," a legacy
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of precious value, for the consultation of writers on the progress of knowledge in the New World, have treated his character and his labors with ability and impartiality. Some forty years ago, I saw the prospectus for the publication of Gover- nor Livingston's works, in several volumes, at the office of the Messrs. Collins. Had the plan been executed, the arm of the patriot would have been nerved with increased strength in behalf of reli- gious toleration and the rights of man, by the no- ble defence of this bold explorer into the domain of popular freedom. But, alas ! the materials for the contemplated work, in print and in manu- script, were suffered to lie in neglect in a printing loft, until time and the rats had destroyed them too far for typographical purposes. I was told that his son, Brockholst Livingston, the renowned United States judge, had the matter in charge, and I have presumed that the remembrance of his father's literary labors was obliterated from his memory, through the weightier responsibilities of juridical business. I believe we are obligated to Samuel Bayard principally for that remarkable series of MSS., the Journals of the House of Commons during the Protectorate of Cromwell, which fill so conspicuous a niche in your library. Mr. Bayard, I apprehend, obtained them through Governor Livingston, or, perhaps, I would be more accurate, were I to say, that they were once in the
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